


Company of strangers

by marieincolour



Category: White Collar
Genre: AU, Child Neglect, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Series, teen!neal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-01
Updated: 2014-04-18
Packaged: 2018-01-11 21:38:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1178217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marieincolour/pseuds/marieincolour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is an AU where Neal is a teenager, Peter arrests him, things don't go so well, and then hopefully they get better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Logically, Danny _knows_ that a lot of families suck, but he doesn't like his own any more for that reason. He knows that not all mothers like their kids, even if they love them. And that sometimes – probably more often than he's aware, they don't even really love their kids all that much at all. It happens, right? People move on. He's pretty sure his mom doesn't like him, even if she does love him. And if she loved him, she's only showing it in ways he doesn't know how to recognise.

Ellen looks after him sometimes these days, as much as he needs looking after anymore, because his mom forgets to get out of bed and sometimes forgets to shower. She forgets to pay bills, too, but Ellen takes care of that, and Neal is pretty sure the only reason their kitchen hasn't become an experiment in biohazardous living conditions is because she does the dishes and makes him take out the trash.

Sometimes she cooks, too, but Ellen has stuff to do, and Danny is fourteen, now. Old enough to handle things, he thinks to himself, quoting what his mom and Ellen are telling him. He doesn't want to, though. He wants someone to swoop in and make sure Christmas is nice and that his mom doesn't make noises like she's throwing things or dropping bottles with a 'thunk' he can hear through the walls, and that he doesn't have to hear her shout and the walls because she's angry at the world and nothing at all. He doesn't want to wake up in the middle of the night and hear her out in the living room, moving things and spinning around with a manic glint in her eyes. If Danny comes out there, she'll talk at him. Not _to_ him, just talk in a way where the words mean nothing unless they all come heaped together in huge piles.

A lot of families suck. Not just his. That doesn't mean that it doesn't feel unfair.

-

Ellen sometimes said that he flew to close to the sun. That sometimes, the margins where his ideas worked were so slim it was hard to understand how it went well, most of the time.

It didn't always. Sometimes he got caught, and sometimes it was even _funny_ afterwards. The time he'd re-set the time for the entire school was a cherished childhood memory. In retrospect it was amusing, and it showed potential and initiative and all kinds of things kids needed, but no one laughed or smiled when Ellen had to show up at school because he'd got in a fight, or because he'd forged his homework.

«You're good, Danny, but you're not that good.»

Her hands were clenched tight around the banister outside their front door as she said it, her eyes boring into his, and he'd ducked his head and nodded. She'd looked concerned, he thought, and a little frightened.

And then the world fell apart, and he was _Neal,_ not Danny. And his mom was his mom and Ellen wasn't anything more than a friend thrown in the mix for fun. The government knew everything about them, dictated their every move while supposedly keeping them safe, and the safety chafed him so bad he didn't know what to do with himself. He packed his bag as if in a daze, and when he came out of his room his mom was leaning against the doorframe to her room. Her eyes met his, but she didn't speak. She turned, closed the door and shuffled away across the creaky floor on the other side.

Neal stood there, hand clenched around the strap of his duffle for a minute or two, breathing hard and swallowing back tears. He felt young, stupid, more than a little unbalanced.

Ellen was at work.

By the time she came back he was long gone.

-

The first time he flew too close to the sun he spent the night in lock-up, refusing to give his age or his name or anything like it. He should've been scared and worried about having been arrested, about the rough hands of the police officer who'd arrested him and dragged him into his car, but all he could think of was the relief of coming off the streets and sleeping on a cot instead of fighting over a vent or a staircase.

New York was cold, he was a kid, and whatever thoughts he'd had of making it and creating something for himself were lost in the noise of the city. It was like the world was a smooth wall with nothing to hold onto to make it to the top, and Neal had all his claws pulled out.

Making friends was no easier than it had been in school, when Neal was the kid who knew too much for his age, and who still didn't do best in lessons. Who always had a witty reply no one but the teachers understood and that all the kids thought were just plain _weird._

And really, he didn't think he could consider the people he got to know as friends, per se, because they were all set on stealing and robbing and drugging their way through life.

And yet their apartment was warm, if dingy and full of needles, and Neal was cold and broke, and far better at stealing than he should've been.

The second time he flew too close to the sun he met Peter Burke, got himself a criminal record, and managed to make the feds let his mother know he was alive and arrested at the same time.

-

«Are you telling me the guy we've been chasing, who's been cheating money out of businesses for _months_ is a sixteen year old?»

Diana shuffled her papers in front of her, and squirmed uncharacteristically in her chair.

«Yeah. We called his mother, she seemed unaware of where he was.»

«Where's he from?»

«His name is Danny Brooks, he's from St. Louis. Apparently he left home six months ago, and she didn't report it because she thought he was old enough to deal.»

Peter snorted. "Yes, because you become a legal adult at eighteen for _fun._ Where is the kid now?"

"Being transported to a juvenile facility to await his trial." She sighed, flipped her pen in her fingers, and looked over at Peter. "Sixteen, Peter. Christ, I was still a cheerleader at sixteen."

"You were a cheerleader?» Peter couldn't help the smirk that crawled onto his face at the thought, and Diana threw her pen right at his shirt.

"Shut up, Burke."

-

The place they're holding the kid is grim. Peter makes his way down the oatmeal painted halls, his shoes squeaking loudly on the floor. The place had the government look of thick layers of paint smothered over years of abuse and writing on the walls. The halls echo with the clangs and bangs of locked doors, voices and squeaky shoes on the shiny floors, and the air is dank and damp, like the ventilation system isn't doing what it should, despite the cold temperatures outside.

Brooks is a thin kid, sitting curled up in a chair with his hands folded and handcuffed in front of him, connected to the table with a thin chain. He looks pale, Peter notices, and very, very young. His curly hair is hanging in his eyes, looking dirty and lank after the last three days in a cell.

He looks up when Peter, the kid's appointed caseworker and lawyer and Jones enter, and his eyes are a bright, clear blue.

"My name is Peter Burke," Peter starts, because while crime pisses him off, he doesn't think he could start out being a dick towards a sixteen year old kid. "I'm here to talk to you about the last few weeks. Do you have anything to say before we get started?"

The kid shakes his head, shrugging one shoulder closer to his body before letting it go again, and the neckline of his too-large t-shirt slides down a little, revealing a pale, too-thin shoulder.

"You've been suspected of scamming major corporations for money from claiming that they have forgotten to pay the bills for renovation work they've never actually ordered. How does a sixteen year old kid get into that kind of business, Mr. Brooks?"

The boy bristles in front of him, and Peter has a moment to recognise both fear and annoyance on his face before he turns back down towards the table top.

"I can't tell you," he says, and Peter sighs.

"Listen, kid, you're sixteen. You're old enough that this isn't going to be forgotten and left alone, and we both know you didn't do this alone. Who was in on it with you? You tell us, and we'll be able to get you a deal. You don't, and you'll be tried and most likely sentenced, and you're old enough that the place that punishment is going to be carried out isn't going to be comfortable. Trust me, It's not something you want."

The boy's caseworker leans over towards him, and whispers something in his ear. The kid shrugs, but looks up at Peter for a short moment before wrapping his arms tighter around his waist.

"I can.. I can tell you who it was, but only if you don't let him know it was me," he says, and Peter shakes his head.

"I'm not going to do that, but he might know anyway. Do you know his name?" He prepares to write it down, jiggles his pen in his right hand.

  
"Matthew Keller," the boy whispers, and Peter knows the only reason he's told them anything at all is because he's scared, new at this game, and doesn't know what kind of trouble this could get him in.

"Does he know your name?"

Several things flit across the boy's face then, and Peter watches them all with interest.

"He.. He thinks he does?"

"But not really?"

The kid shakes his head again, and Peter nods.

"All right, Mr. Brooks. I'm going to be honest with you. We've been on the trail of this Mr. Keller for a while now, and if you can help us find him, your case will look much better. Is there anything you can tell us that might help?"

The kid leans forward against the table again, and Peter thinks he might be bracing himself for what's coming. Peter doesn't blame him.

The boy hasn't pieced together much, but what he's observed and remembered more than makes up for it, and Peter listens carefully, asking pointed questions for almost two hours before he's satisfied they've got enough.

"If you can think of anything else," he says, picking out a worn little business card out of his wallet with his own number and name on it, "call me. All right?"

He leaves the card on the table top, and he and Clinton make their way out of the dank, dark building into the weak sunlight outside.

-

He doesn't see Danny Brooks again until the trial against him. The charges aren't too serious, and he co-operated fully with the police, but he has to stand trial anyway. He remembers being sixteen, and wonders how a sixteen year old can get into such a mess on his own without running crying to his parents. That's what he'd have done, anyway.

And yet, Brooks sits alone next to his lawyer, looking thin and terribly young in his too-big suit that's puffy around the shoulders. His hair is longer, brushing his collar in big, brown curls with a hint of blonde baby hair thrown in. Peter doesn't think he's old enough to shave, even, and he's little for a sixteen year old.

_"I did the paperwork,"_ he hears the boy say in his head. " _Mr. Keller didn't think I could pass off as an adult,"_ he'd claimed, looking affronted. Peter couldn't help but agree, but the look on Brooks' face shows clearly that while Peter thinks he's still a child, the boy doesn't agree.

But he looks pale and thin, tired and weary and _scared,_ and as much as Peter tries, he can't see a criminal. Just a child out of his depth.

The judge must agree, because he lets the boy off with community service and probation.

"If I ever see you in my court again, Mr. Brooks," he says, just as the boy is turning towards his lawyer to have the verdict interpreted for him, "I wont be letting you off so easily. This is your chance."

Peter wonders where his parents are before he has to leave. There's an opening at the White Collar unit that he's applied for, and now he's late for the interview.

-

When Neal left, the traces of his childhood still lingered around the walls of their home. Five months later, and Ellen has gone to live her own life – under a new name and with an address his mother didn't ask. His mother is still around, but only because Neal is a minor and she is his guardian, and the WitSec people reunite them despite her best efforts not to. They don't relocate, because no one knows Neal, and no one knows his name, and his mom was never mentioned at all.

She didn't even show up for his trial, Neal thinks. Didn't even bother checking if he'd be going to jail. Instead she sits on the couch watching TV while he carries his duffle in and a police officer waits patiently in the hallway to be invited in. He could've killed someone, and she'd never have known, because she didn't come to the trial. It's not true. Someone would've called her, but _she didn't come._ It hurts.

In the end the policeman goes in to speak with her without an invitation, and Neal washes his face four times in a sink covered in remains of a yellow soap that has gone grey with dust and grime, and dries his face on a towel with black mascara smears.

There are empty toilet rolls and cotton pads and little plastic wrappers on the floor of the bathroom, and little wet spots where water has dripped from the shower. Some of the paint on the walls is flaking off, and when he sits on the toilet to bury his face in his hands, the toilet wobbles forth and back like it hasn't been fastened properly to the floor.

_Shit._

-

He doesn't go back to school. No one tries to make him, but the parole officer he has to talk to once a day and see once a week tries to explain how important it is that he go back, that he get an education and a future and everything you need to be a proper, upstanding citizen of the world, but the thought of sitting in a class room with people he's known for years who never liked him, pretending he never ran away and didn't get arrested and just really, really worries about what he'll do for fun next Friday makes him feel sick.

Neal doesn't feel like he'll ever be an upstanding citizen. He has to listen to people call him Danny – even his mom does, even though Neal feels even less like a Danny than he does a Neal, and sometimes late at night he wonders if he has another «real» name hidden somewhere.

Buddy, maybe. Or Huck. Those seem like the kinds of names that waiting for him.

He doesn't go back to school, but he does his community service. Painting. Cleaning. Washing away graffiti, picking up trash in the park with the other asswipes who didn't hack it at being criminals, either. They smell of alcohol, and one of the ladies has scraggly hair with ticks in it. She doesn't smell of alcohol, but her eyes drift off when you speak to her, and sometimes she says stuff to people no one else can see.

Neal keeps to himself, and tries not to pay attention to the itch in his legs and his head to just _run_ and never look back, because there's nothing to run away to.

He tried. He tried _so_ hard to run away, but all he could do was sleep on vents or in the doorway of buildings, and sometimes people stole his stuff, and sometimes he had to go to shelters to shower. And then he'd met Keller, and he thought, he'd _thought_ things were going to go better.

And then all of a sudden he was on his stomach, his face turned to the side with an angry arm holding him down, and all he could see was his little desk in the dark room where he practiced signatures and faked contracts as best he could. There was gum on the underside the table, he remembered. He'd watched that gum for _ages,_ all of the several hours and seconds it took for the police to cuff him and pull him to his feet. Up, up and away.

The FBI had come, too. Peter Burke, with his dirty blonde hair and kind eyes, and mouth that looked sterner than everything else about him, including the violently colourful pattern on his tie. His coat was too big, too, but he'd been decent. Hadn't made Neal undress to prove he wasn't carrying, or show his arms to prove he wasn't shooting up. Had asked him questions, offered him a deal, and been _right_ about how telling the truth would help him get out.

And Neal had done it, because he'd forgotten what he was getting out _to._

Sometimes his mom didn't get off the couch at all, and sometimes she was gone for days on end. She'd come home smelling of sex and cigarettes, and there'd be holes in her clothes and zippers broken, and lipstick on her teeth.

She didn't look at him anymore. Didn't ask him what he wanted to be when he grew up, but sometimes she stopped outside the door to his bedroom. Stood there for minutes, sometimes. Neal knew, because the floors creaked, and he could see the shadow under his door.

He picked up the trash in the bathroom, in the hallway and in the kitchen, and even did some of the dishes. Hid them, so they'd be clean when he came back. Bought pot noodles and cereal at the store, at ate them with water because that was all that was left of his pocket change from New York, and his mom only ever bought more to drink, he thought. And cigarettes. She put them out in an ashtray that seemed to fill the entire living room table, all of a sudden, and sometimes in an empty beer bottle. It smelled sour and stale in the living room, and he locked himself in his bedroom instead.

There was nothing to do, nothing to look forward to, and his feet _itched._ The world spun on, faster and faster, and all he could do was sit on his bed and watch the stickers flaking off his door, the school papers from last year still on his desk with the broken drawer.  
  



	2. Company of strangers 2/?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He hadn't thought, somehow, that things would ever change. That he'd be sixteen forever, and they'd live in St. Louis forever, and he'd roam the streets on his way home from community service forever. Talk to his parole officer forever, and lie about his plans and thoughts, and smile that bright, happy, too wide smile that made his eyes go too wide and weird, but worked on adults anyway. That the only thing that would change was him.

  
Both he and El knew they couldn't have kids. Didn't mean they'd stopped hoping or anything, because while Peter didn't think he could ever _wish_ for children when he knew the chances were so slim, that didn't mean he wasn't allowed to hope in the privacy of his own head. Their house had two bedrooms, one bathroom and a large enough living room that he thought, sometimes, that there would be room for kids.

When had he grown old enough that the thought of kids didn't terrify him?

They got a dog, instead. A big, fluffy dog that loved them and slobbered all over his shoes and smelled funky when it rained. That begged for pizza and leftovers like it would make his entire _year_ to eat Peter's cheese crust. Peter didn't much care for jazz, but he thought Satchmo was a good name anyway.

He painted the staircase the way El told him to. Painted the doors and the fireplace in their bedroom in glossy, clean white, and let El put up flowers and pillows and shove the bed in against the wall even though it meant climbing over her to get out at night and in the morning when she hadn't gotten up yet.

He spent time making sure the bookcases were screwed right into the wall, that the TV wouldn't fall down anytime soon and that the chimneys weren't blocked.

He got a promotion, a new job, and at some point El got her business off the ground and came home with appetizers and canapés and cooked soups and quinoa and made him try a juice faste for two days before he cracked and came home smelling of cheeseburgers and milkshake.

Sometimes his toes got cold on the hardwood floors at night, and sometimes he got stuck in traffic for so long he regrettet not having cable TV installed in his car.

Life rolled on. He was _good_ at what he did, and he liked his friends and his wife and his dog and his house, and sometimes the big, gaping hole that was his future without a family, just him and El and the dog, scabbed over a little.

-

Neal didn't know whether to laugh or cry that morning in December, when the apartment was cold and damp in the early morning hours and he only had twenty minutes to make the bus down to the center to find out what he'd be painting or cleaning today. The shower he took was quick and perfunctory, because they didn't have the money to pay the bill, and the least he could do was try to keep it down.

His hoodie was smelly and needed a wash, but he was going to get sweaty anyway, and it didn't matter. Through the kitchen window he could see the neighbours Christmas lights peek over the glass separator between their balconies, but their kitchen was dirty, and the floor covered in trash and empty plastic bags like usual. It didn't feel much like Christmas, he thought, bringing his bowl of cereal and almost-old milk into the living room.

It clattered to the floor, spreading a large, white stain over the rug that covered their worn floor.

He hadn't thought, somehow, that things would ever change. That he'd be sixteen forever, and they'd live in St. Louis forever, and he'd roam the streets on his way home from community service forever. Talk to his parole officer forever, and lie about his plans and thoughts, and smile that bright, happy, too wide smile that made his eyes go too wide and weird, but worked on adults anyway. That the only thing that would change was him.

He'd thought his mom would drink forever, watch soaps forever, be _hopeless_ forever, and that someday Ellen would be back to put her right.

He dials 911 on the phone with no credit with trembling hands, and doesn't remember what he told them after. Doesn't want to touch her, or look at her. He sits in the hallway until they come, and hides in the kitchen with an EMT when they carry her out. Doesn't want to think or talk or explain why they live like they do - _did_ , can only tremble and worry and feel sick and dizzy.

They take him to the hospital, and he waits in a room with a nurse and a cup of tea until a doctor comes in and explains that his mother has passed away, and that he doesn't know why, and can't guess why because of liability, and that social services have been called. That he'd been brave, that he'd done well. «You're in shock,» a nurse said, and he scoffs even though she's right. He thinks about old photos, where the only faces that appear unblurred are the dead ones, because the shutter takes too long for living people to stay still. That's how he feels, like everyone else is dead in front of a shutter, and he can't stand still.

He closes his eyes behind his cup, and tries not to pull even more on the sleeves of his smelly hoodie. _Fuck._

-

The man that takes him to his flat has a long coat, like Peter Burke had. He pulls it back to put his hands in his pockets, and Neal hurries off to his room to pack his duffle again. It's still half full of papers and clothes from New York, and he puts junk on top of it. Papers he needs, maybe, and his wallet. His mom's scarf, and his parents' wedding photo with the cracked glass from her nightstand.

«What'll happen to the rest of the stuff?» He asks the man, and the man shakes his head.

«Don't worry, we'll take care of it,» he replies, and Neal worries.

The group home isn't bright or cheery or nice. There is no family running it, no little married couple. There are employees and guards, because Neal is a delinquent, and it's late. The doors lock at night, his bunk moves and creaks when his bunkmate moves, and he tries not to think about how he never made it to community service, and how he didn't call his parole officer today.

How he didn't make it through high school before he fucked his life up. Must be some kind of record, he muses, and closes his eyes before rubbing his face into the starchy pillowcase on his bed, the itchy blankets scratchy even through his half dirty sweats. 

The first week is both the hardest and the easiest. It's hard, because he fucks up and sits in the wrong place and talks to the wrong kid and sometimes forgets to smile and make his eyes go wide and blue. Easy, because he thinks, somehow, that he'll get out of here. That this'll all end once they _see_ that he doesn't belong there.

And then, the truth sinks in, and he worries, all of a sudden, about what's going to happen if he has to stay here. If he has to wrap the blankets tight around himself at night every single night until he's 18 so no one can reach under his blankets, and not walk down hallways so people can shove him into corners and touch him and fuck with him. Sleep with his things in a pillowcase under his sweater so they wont be stolen when he wakes up.

The third week is easier, because after the security guard has shoved his head into a doorframe for walking too quickly and talking in line, he doesn't even want to _try_ to stay and make things right.

The fourth week he runs away.

Two days later, he's back in New York.

He'll be seventeen in a month. He's been arrested and on trial, and both of his parents have lived and failed and died within his lifespan. He's smart and clever and _quick,_ but he can't avoid life forever. Can't keep himself from going into a store or needing a bathroom or talking to someone forever, and at some point he knows it's all going to go down _horribly._

He just didn't expect it to happen on his first night back?

But really, he thinks while the police officer unlocks his cuffs and pushes him into a cell with three other men, it's his own fault. The men stare at him like he's something dirty on their shoes, and he goes to sit in a corner, quiet and worried and running on empty. He's been up for almost two days, and his head is hot and fuzzy. His hands ache, the scrapes from asphalt and glass bleeding a little. Clenching his fists hurts.

He hadn't expected to be mugged. He didn't have anything of value – how could he? But the guy following him hadn't known that, and before Neal could duck into a store and be thrown out because he looked and smelled like he didn't have anywhere to go, the guy had tried to stop him.

He wasn't a fighter – didn't even like violence or boxing or even karate, but he was sixteen and scared and angry, and when the cops came his claims of being robbed were knocked down because there _was no other guy_ anymore, and he'd broken a window with his elbow, set off an alarm and dropped his duffle.

An hour later and he was stuck in a holding cell, waiting for someone to discover who he was and send him back to the group home.

-

When the phone rang, Peter had one foot out the door and the other set to leave the welcoming mat inside in another millisecond. He really was. And then he'd be out of there for two days, off to see his parents and his nephews and eat something dead and big his mother had cooked.

Whatever he was about to do had to wait, because while Peter Burke was a modern man in many ways, he was old fashioned enough that when the phone rang and he was in any condition to answer, he did.

«Is this Peter Burke?»

«Yes, this is he.»

«This is the New York City police department. You have a call from a Danny Brooks. Are you willing to speak with him?»

Peter had to turn his head over for a moment before recalling the thin, young boy in the court room in his too-big suit and his curly hair.

«Yes.»

The phone line scrambled for a moment, and a single beep sounded before a voice at the other end asked «Mr. Burke?»

«Yes?» he replied, because he didn't know what to say to a boy he'd questioned about his crimes several months earlier, but didn't want to snub because... Well. Because something, presumably.

«I'm sorry, I just.. I remembered your number from that card, and I got this phone call and didn't know who to call and I'm in _jail,_ Mr. Burke, and I didn't even _do_ anything this time, and...»

Danny paused, but before Peter could reply he said «I'm real sorry, Mr. Burke, I shouldn't have called. I'm sorry.»

And then he hung up.

-

He drives with both hands on the wheel, with music blaring and windows just a little bit open so they'll let air in and make noise. It drives El mad, most of the time, and she'll close the window just to have him open them again moments later when he thinks she's forgotten their little game.

She never does.

Today, he drives with both hands on the wheel and the radio tuned to soft jazz, and both windows are closed. She watches him for a while, how the edges of his mouth twitch and move like he's carrying on a conversation in his head that his body can't quite hide. He doesn't notice her.

«Honey?» She asks, and he twitches to look at her, and then back to the road again. He's a safe driver, most of the time. Satchmo pants in the back, in his cage.

«Is there anything wrong?» she tries again, and he shakes his head, then nods, and then shakes it again.

«No, I.. No, there's nothing wrong. I just had a call today that I didn't expect, and now I'm wondering what it was about, that's all.»

«Who was it?» She asks, and he looks at her again.

«It was a kid I arrested a while back. I thought he was in St. Louis with his mom, but the call came from lockup here. He's sixteen, El, and I just thought... Yeah.»

He pauses, and his thumbs play with the pattern on the wheel.

«I guess kids go down the wrong path every day.»

She watches him, quietly for a while.

«You're a good man, Peter Burke.»

«What did I do this time?» He asks, smiling confusedly down at her.

«You don't have to do anything to be a good man. That's just something you are. And maybe, on Monday, you'll see what happened with him? And then let your wife know?»

He shakes his head, and turns back to the road.

-

The weekend passes like it should, with his nephews rough housing and taking too long to warm up to him, because they don't see him as often as he wishes they would. His parents are getting older, and his dad has gotten that old man's-walk since the last time they did the drive up to come see them. He watches him potter around the house, making sure the air mattress the boys will be sleeping on is full and isn't leaking, and he watches as his oldest nephew – Ryan, 12 – chases his younger brother around the garden with a handful of dirty snow, the fat terrier his mom treasures like a third child hot on their heels.

They leave early Sunday morning, because the four hour drive back home will easily turn into six with traffic, and they both have work the next morning.

It's domestic and quiet and the way things should be, down to the last detail, and yet Peter can't stop thinking about the phone call. _«I'm real sorry, Mr. Burke, I shouldn't have called. I'm sorry.»_

Ryan is 12, and his hair is blonde and straight, _and only 12,_ but Peter can't stop thinking about Danny Brooks anyway.

-

«Danny Brooks has been transferred back to his group home in St. Louis, Mr. Burke. Can I give you the phone number?»

He sighs, digging the fingers of his right hand deep into his short hair, worrying for a moment that he let the pen he's also holding make another long, blue streak across his forehead. The last time he did that, no one told him until lunchtime. He'd spent the morning looking like a naughty toddler.

«Yes, please. That would be helpful.»

The group home houses somewhere around 30 boys, he finds out quickly enough. It's not a home, it's just a place to store kids who have nowhere else to go. Peter thinks about Danny's round shoulders in the too-big suit jacket and his curly hair, and the insecurity in his voice when he told them about Keller.

He thinks about cuffing a kid and throwing him to the ground because he doesn't _know_ it's a kid, and his stomach churns.  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neal gets a visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short one today. I'm trying to decide on a few things that'll come up later in the story, but the next chapter will be up in not too long. :) Thanks for hanging on and reading.

He doesn't like the group home. Knowing that he has to stay another year makes it worse, because the year stretches out in front of him like it'll last forever. School grinds away at him in little pieces, and the days crawl by in sad little moments where he watches the others argue over the television, tries not to use the wrong shower, and tries not to get in the middle of fights over drugs, money or hormones. 

He has no friends. There is no one to talk to, because he tries not to talk to anyone. It doesn't make it any less lonely, but it keeps him out of complications and trouble. He doesn't feel like eating, doesn't want to read or talk, and when his probationary officer asks one time too many how he's doing, he snaps at him. Unwisely, he knows, but he can't help it. 

How does it look like he's doing? 

The embarrassment of being arrested and chartered back home like a runaway child, only to be dumped in a room that's locked day and night for the first day doesn't stop hurting. 

And even though he's one of the oldest kids, almost ready to transfer out, he hides from the younger boys with the wide jaws and steely eyes as much as he can. They're bigger than him, sometimes. Some of them know where they are and know the system and the unspoken rules, and he doesn't. Doesn't make an effort to learn them, either. Doesn't want to stretch things to see where he can get, and the thought is so foreign that the world spins backwards for a while sometimes. 

He doesn't eat. Doesn't really sleep. Doesn't care how long he has left or why he's here, and doesn't think about life before or what'll happen next, because he doesn't know, and the uncertainty rubs him raw at night when he tries to sleep.

And then, one day, on a Saturday when some of the kids have visitors and he never does, because there is no one to visit him anymore, and no one who knows where he is, the lady at the door pauses, looks at him, and says "And you, Brooks. There's a man waiting for you. Come on."

He sees Mr. Burke the moment he enters the room where they get to meet with parents and family and people who come to see them, a grey, sad room with furniture inherited from some government institution somewhere, because Burke is the only one sitting alone. Also, he's wearing that coat again, the one Neal noticed the first time they met. His face flushes bright red, and he turns to leave only to walk right into a tall woman behind him. She startles, and he apologises even as she drops her bag to the floor. “Danny,” Burke says, half getting out of his seat, tugging the coat closer around himself and then sitting down again. 

"Hey," Neal whispers, letting himself fall into a seat of his own. "I'm sorry I called you that night, I didn't... Yours was the only number I remembered, and they gave me a phone call."

He knows what it says about him that the only person he could think of to call is the guy who arrested him, and he's rambling, he knows, and giving away more information than he really wants to, but Burke doesn't look angry. He looks worried, and a little tired.

"I'm not upset that you called,” Burke says, and then takes a deep breath and purses his lips in a way that makes it look like he's thinking so hard it hurts. They sit there, and the silence swells between them like a wall.

"My mom died," he blurts out, because it occurs to him that Mr. Burke might think he did something else wrong, and that's why he's here. It comes out sounding like he wants sympathy instead, and he winces.

"I saw," Burke says, and Neal nods. FBI. “I'm sorry.” They fall silent again.

"And they sent you here," Burke says, waving his hand around himself like he's waving off an insect. "How are you doing here?"

His eyes are wide and honest, and his face is kind and he was the only person who was decent to Neal, so Neal can't help it when his eyes fill with tears and his voice quivers a little, and he manages to whisper "awful," like he's a five year old again. 

Burke nods. "I'm sorry," he says, like it's his fault Neal is an idiot. Neal swipes his hand across his face like he's sweaty, not like he's about to start crying at all. Burke doesn't mention it.

"My wife says hello," he says finally, after a long pause. "And she told me to bring these," he continues, sliding a plastic container towards Neal. He doesn't open it. Hugs it closely to his chest instead, staring up at the tall man on the other side of the table. 

"Why did you come here, Mr Burke?" He asks finally, and doesn't mean for it to come out rude even though it does. 

"You called me," Burke says, and shrugs, looking self-conscious. "And I guess I just wondered what happened to you."

"Yeah," Neal says, like he agrees. He wonders, too, sometimes. 

\- 

Satchmo tries to be between her legs, climbing up her dress and under her feet all at once when she comes through the door. She pushes him away, wincing at the doggie breath that fans her, and tries not to get slobber all over her hands for her troubles.

"His mom died," Peter says, the moment she's got both feet in the door. 

"What?" She asks, though she thinks she knows. Brooks. The kid. Peter looks tired, but it was a long trip, she muses. 

"His mom. Danny Brooks' mom, she died. He found her, apparently. Got sent to a group home."

He snorts, jiggling the beer bottle on his knee. 

"Juvy, I'd call it, but there you go."

He takes a sip, and she hangs her scarf up. 

"How did he look?"

"Like he's barely hanging on."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

She sits down next to him, and he leans against her shoulder. Just a little. Takes another sip. 

"You're worried about him."

He doesn't reply, and she goes on. 

"I know you, Peter Burke, and you're worried about him."

"Yeah, but what can I do? He committed a crime, no one is going to take him in, and he's only got a year left. What am I supposed to do?"

The rice she wants to make takes almost 50 minutes to boil. She should get it started unless they both want to have beer for dinner. 

"You're a good man, Peter Burke."

He sighs audibly, and she hurries off to find the rice.


End file.
